


As the River Flows

by Umbrella_ella



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, So much angst, Some Romance too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Effie is quiet, and the silence hangs heavy in the room. The train rocks a little bit, the bend around the river sharp. The lights flicker, and Effie flinches. Haymitch raises his glass to his lips and pretends not to notice. </p><p>The journey to District Four is long, longer than Haymitch likes, and he watches as the pine trees flit past, songbirds calling through the forest outside."</p><p>Haymitch finds Effie in the Capitol and takes it upon himself to help her heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy story-- this is a heaping pile of angst. All I know is that when I started this, I wanted to tell Effie's story.

Effie is quiet, and the silence hangs heavy in the room. The train rocks a little bit, the bend around the river sharp. 

The lights flicker, and Effie flinches. Haymitch raises his glass to his lips and pretends not to notice. 

The journey to District Four is long, longer than Haymitch likes, and he watches as the pine trees flit past, songbirds calling through the forest outside. The sunlight does little to warm the ground, and frost coats the needles of each tree, a brisk breeze sending a chill through Haymitch, despite the warmth of the train car. Effie sits across from him, silent and staring. Her blue eyes stand out against her abnormally pale face, and Haymitch thinks that maybe she’s looking without seeing. Her eyes are pale, sad, and Haymitch wishes he could say something, anything, to make her see him, even if it insults her. Her dress is too big around her, and the washed out grey of the thin fabric does little for her complexion. Instead, she’s as white and ghostly as her Capitol makeup, though her face is as bare as the rest of her pale skin. 

She shifts, and Haymitch adjusts minutely, bracing himself for whatever comes, but he feels his heart drop when she simply pulls at the skirt of her dress with short, ragged nails and dry hands. 

The journey passes in silence, and they spend at least three hours in perpetual stillness before Haymitch speaks. 

“You know, you could do with this getaway, Eff. It’ll be good for you,” he speaks, wincing at the brash loudness of his voice, hating the way his voice sounds. It’s gruff, even to him. Kindness is not a tone he’s used often, but he finds himself using it more often around her nowadays. 

He doesn’t know how that should make him feel, so he doesn’t dwell. 

Effie doesn’t speak, and but for the flicker of mournful shame that he catches in her ice-like eyes, Haymitch would have thought she hadn’t heard him. The train trundles on, and the scenery gradually changes to a dam, fish springing up out of the water intermittently as the roar of white waves blots out any other sounds, even the birds. Haymitch stays silent, the only sound in the compartment that of ice clinking in his glass. 

There’s no alcohol in Four, not really, but even then, Haymitch has mostly quit the stuff. 

Katniss had hidden his stash before he left, and Haymitch still hasn’t forgiven her. He looks at Effie and hopes she’d be proud of him. An announcement cuts through the quiet, tinny and cheerful through the silence of the compartment. 

“Next stop, District Four. Please be sure to retrieve all of your belongings as you exit the compartments.” 

Haymitch sits up then, his jacket rumpled and misshapen from staying hunched in the corner against the windows. His arm prickles with goosebumps, and the chill of the cold glass stays with him even as he stands, retrieving the two cases from the rack above.

The compartment itself is tiny, cramped, and Haymitch tries to avoid Effie, if only to avoid any flinches or trembles. 

He finds himself wishing she would shout at him, her shrill Capitol accent recounting the promises he had made to clean up, almost wishing she would critique the way his beard has grown scruffy and rough. He looks at her hopefully, but her lanky blond hair covers her expression as she looks out of the window, her forehead pressed against the chilly window. Haymitch sighs, the expression cutting through the quiet. 

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry for everything.” Effie turns to look at him, and the anger in her eyes is stony, filled with ice and anger, and he has never been more devastated.

He leaves then, setting their bags on the cushioned bench he had vacated minutes earlier, and stepping out of the private compartment into the cramped corridor to hand their ticket to the ticket master. 

He gives the man a nod in acknowledgement, and tries not to think of the way Effie had looked at him, filled with immutable rage. 

The journey to the cabin is relatively short, but the quickly fading sunlight makes the walk colder than before, and Haymitch picks up his pace, huffing by the time he reaches the end of the path. Effie follows behind him closely, though at times Haymitch wonders if he should have clasped her hand in his, so as not to leave her behind. 

Haymitch had journeyed to the Capitol to visit Paylor about some policy, and found Effie wandering the streets, dazed and malnourished. The scars on her arms were stark pink against her ghostly pale skin, and Haymitch shudders to remember where she’d lived. A tiny closet of a room, really, with a single broken bed and a toilet. A refugee shelter, the official had called it. Euphemia Trinket’s home had fallen in the war. He visited her old home, the way through the streets almost familiar to him, though most of the buildings had been reduced to rubble. He searched through piles until he finds it. A single wig, wedged tightly beneath rubble and rock, candy pink, had survived. He had given it to her when he arrived back at the center, and she’d shouted and screamed and clawed at him until her words were unintelligible and her fingers were raw. 

He’d held her then for a long while she cried, fingers twisting at his shirt and tears staining his lapels. 

It was then that he’d decided he would take her home, but the mere mention of Twelve had sent her into a panic. He’d remembered the cabin he still technically owned in Four, with its peaceful lake, its quiet atmosphere and he made a call to Annie Cresta. 

Effie moves slowly through the cabin, touching things and looking closely at the various pictures that adorn the walls. It’s obvious that the cabin hasn’t been touched in years. 

The door creaks behind him as he knocks it shut with his boot. He deposits the bags next to the door, and pauses to remind himself of his surroundings. He’d bought the cabin shortly after he’d won the Games, intending to take his brother fishing, but he hadn’t gotten the chance. His family had been slaughtered and inter-district travel had been restricted to law officials. Haymitch looks at the picture closest to him, and it’s only by the dim strip of moonlight that he can see the occupants of the simple frame. A young boy with nearly black hair grinned up at the camera, curls falling past his ears, smile eager and toothy, hand tugging at a reluctant older boy whose feet were rooted on the porch firmly, face sullen and pale, blond hair stringy around his eyes. A woman with Seam-grey eyes was looking out past the boys, her greying hair tucked back in a unkempt bun.

Haymitch shifts away quietly, taking in the dusty environment. Maybe he should have hired a cleaner to clean. Then again, he thinks as he takes in the photos and baubles that rest on shelfs and tables, perhaps not. 

This place is a mausoleum.

Later that night, when he’s given Effie her bedsheets and a pillow, he tries to pretend he cannot hear her sobs, muffled through the walls of the cabin.


	2. Phantoms and Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She feels thin, frayed at the edges like a worn out cloth, as though one pull at a string might send her unravelling. The nightmares are pulling at her urgently, and she can very nearly hear the steady drip of a distant pipe, can almost feel the dirty cement beneath her cheek, and she can’t quite tell if it’s real or not.
> 
> Go away, go away, go away, she begs, and she hates the way her thoughts sound, brittle and tense, as though a simple rush of memories might break her." 
> 
> Effie wakes from a nightmare, and Haymitch tries to help.

Her joints are on fire with the pricks of a thousand pins and needles, and her skin crawls until there’s nothing left to do but tremble and quake. Unbidden, her mouth opens wide in a useless scream. The darkness that surrounds her is so black she cannot see where she is. Her hands flail wildly and she needs something, anything to hold on to. Her palm meets something hard, and she twists her fingers into an unyielding grip that threatens to break whatever it is that she holds. Dimly, she hears something shatter, but she squeezes her eyes shut against her nightmares, as if even in waking, they might drift away. They don’t.

Phantom hands pinch and pull at her from the unending black and she recalls the bone-chilling cold of her prison cell with such clarity that she cannot help but shake.

Effie kicks away the stifling blankets because it’s all just _too much_ and shifts to the wall, the wood cool against her cheek, the rough grain prickling at her fair skin.

Light floods the room, and suddenly, Haymitch is there, sleep- muddled eyes panicked and wild. Her hand hurts and Effie realizes that it was the bed post that she was gripping and the lamp on the nightstand lay shattered on the floor, pieces of pottery having landed as far as the doorway. Haymitch steps forward and winces as clay cuts into his foot, but he gingerly toes around the rest of the broken pieces and makes his way to her. His nightclothes are rumpled, and he smells of sweat. Effie dimly wonders if he’s slept at all.

The hardwood is stained almost black with his blood.

Effie's crouching near the edge of the bed, and her nightgown is ripped. Her knuckles are white from the effort of gripping the bed post.

She doesn’t let go.

Her cheeks redden with shame, but Haymitch doesn't seem angry, instead, his eyes are softer than she's ever seen before. It's foreign to her, this kindness, and she starts when he touches her shoulder. The bed dips when he sits down. His grey eyes do not leave her, instead it seems he's searching for something.

She hates him.

She hates the way he looks at her, sad and soft, and it’s unfamiliar to her. Effie pulls away, not caring that Haymitch seems mildly offended by the gesture. She leaves the plain bedroom, careful not to step on the pieces of the lamp.

Haymitch follows her out then, and his footsteps are soft as he retrieves a bandage from the kitchenette, binding his foot. Effie stands in the middle of the room, and though she can tell Haymitch is hesitant, he sits on the ottoman, a puff of dust rising up through the air as he does so. Its cold, and Effie’s bare feet are freezing against the hardwood.

She finds she doesn’t care.

She folds her arms across her chest in an effort to look like herself. The look on Haymitch’s face, visible even in the relative darkness of the room, tells her she does not succeed.

Effie stares at the piece of shattered clay as he places it on the small end table nearby with a rattle. The workmanship almost reminds her of District Two's elaborate clay work. It's stained a murky brown now and she can smell the coppery tang of Haymitch’s blood from where she stands.

Effie cannot bear the silence any longer. She means to apologize, say something that will stop him from staring at her that way, like a mourning parent ready for the end. Effie shudders at the thought, her shoulders quaking. She does not want to know what end Haymitch is waiting for. The apologies get caught and they scrape the back of her throat like barbed wire.

She stays quiet.

She hates his compassion, his unyielding kindness. Effie wishes he would hate her. Like before. Her apology, though practiced and rehearsed in her mind, does not come, and instead, something else bubbles forth from her chest, an indignant rage she has no right to feel. It’s hot and blistering against her palette, and the words taste bitter even as they pour out.

“Why am I here?”

Effie wants to take back her words, to pull them back in and shove them deep in a box where they cannot hurt her. Or him.

Her voice is hoarse and her accent all but gone, instead her voice is low and gravelly with disuse, and she watches as Haymitch's eyes snap up from his foot to meet her gaze. His hair is still tousled, but his eyes are as grey and sharp as ever.

“Because I care.” Haymitch says it so fast, so quickly after she speaks, she wonders if that’s how he really feels. Her thoughts slow her down, and her head pounds with the weight of them.

Whispers of nightmares dance, just there, out of reach, fluttering like curtains, their fingers tugging at her nightdress, but she closes her eyes against them and lets out a shaky breath. Her palms are stinging where her too short nails are biting into the soft flesh of her hands.

She feels thin, frayed at the edges like a worn out cloth, as though one pull at a string might send her unravelling. The nightmares are pulling at her urgently, and she can very nearly hear the steady drip of a distant pipe, can almost feel the dirty cement beneath her cheek, and she can’t quite tell if it’s real or not.

_Go away, go away, go away,_ she begs, and she hates the way her thoughts sound, brittle and tense, as though a simple rush of memories might break her.

Effie wants to joke, to tell him this is an act, to tell him she's fine, to smooth the worry from his forehead with the touch of a cool palm. Even as she thinks it, she knows it's a lie. So instead, she moves to the window, further away from him.

It’s safer.

They’re both safer this way.

The water is almost pretty, the way the moonlight touches it, and she thinks of the jewels she’d so loved in the Capitol. Her stomach turns, and Effie wonders if the water is as cold as it looks.

“You shouldn't.” She says it quietly, and she means it, really, even as her lips tremble around it.

Effie isn't sure if he hears her, because he doesn't reply. Instead, he shuffles around, his gait uneven, and his footfalls making the floorboards creak. When she turns away from the window, Haymitch is gone, the remnants of the lamp in the waste bin by the door. The door to his room is shut and the sheets on her bed have been changed.

She doesn’t sleep.


	3. Cold Without, Cold Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Haymitch is always cold without a bottle. Or maybe it’s just really fucking cold. Frost is covering the window, and pink light tinges the sunrise. It’s early then. Grimacing, he sits up, and braces himself against the bed. The floor is chilly against his bare feet, and goosepimples erupt on his skin."
> 
> Haymitch pushes. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some cursing, because, you know, it's Haymitch. 10/10 would not recommend Haymitch as a therapist.

Haymitch is always cold without a bottle. Or maybe it’s just really fucking cold.

Frost is covering the window, and pink light tinges the sunrise.

It’s early then. Grimacing, he sits up, and braces himself against the bed. The floor is chilly against his bare feet, and goosepimples erupt on his skin. The room looks a lot like he left it twenty-six years ago. Bare, utilitarian, and barely hospitable. Still, he thinks, it’s better than Thirteen.

The birds don’t chirp so much, here in the deep mountain ranges of Four, instead, it’s quieter, almost eerie. A glance out the window tells him that the last bits of frost are still clinging to the ground. It’s going to be cold today.

He’s up half the morning before he hears Effie move. Her bed creaks, the springs groaning. He’s been in the main room for a couple of hours. A book lay abandoned on the counter in the kitchenette next to the cooling tea kettle, and Haymitch has taken to staring out of the window, watching the swirls and eddies of the lake outside make patterns in the loose sand and gravel. The cabin is close enough to the water to go swimming, but Haymitch doesn’t want hypothermia.

He should have picked a better time of the year. November in the mountains isn’t as pleasant as he thought it would be.

It’s quiet here, and Haymitch isn’t certain he likes it. Booze had always kept him company before, kept the memories at bay, but here, there’s nothing. Here there’s too much time and not enough alcohol.

He lifts his mug to his lips.

The tea is cold because he’d forgotten about it too long, letting the warmth leech into his fingers instead. Figures.

The fog isn’t lifting, and Haymitch regrets his decision to take Effie here. They could’ve gone south. The idea of warm sand and sunny beaches seems to work for a moment, and for a moment, Haymitch lets himself believe he’s somewhere else.

But that’s not what Effie needs. He’s going to do this right, he has to.

For her.

For himself.

That thought scares him, panic ballooning in his veins like too much oxygen, making him almost dizzy.

The hours trawl by like this, Haymitch in his armchair, staring out of the window, and Effie still in her room. The clock on the mantle chimes suddenly, and Haymitch dumps his tea everywhere with a curse.

“Fuck,” he hisses, “fuckfuckfuckfuck.” His sweater comes off easily enough, but it’s the shirt that gives him a hard time. The tea is soaked into it, and it leaves his skin wet. Haymitch shudders, and throws the blanket over his shoulders. He hated that shirt anyway.

After digging out a thicker shirt and then a wool sweater from the depths of his drawer, Haymitch heads to the kitchen cupboards. It’s three in the afternoon, and his stomach is reminding him that he hasn’t eaten all day. His hand is on the cabinet handle before he realizes he’s forgotten groceries.

All that’s in the cupboard are some stale crackers and oats. He’d packed the tea with him.

Casting a glance towards Effie’s room, he makes a decision. It’s only an hour trip there and back, and odds are, she’s still sleeping.

He grabs his coat, scribbles a note to Effie just in case and leaves.

* * *

 

It's nearly dark when he gets back, and they’re further north than Twelve, so he’s not really surprised.

What does surprise him is that every damn light in the house is on. He’s halfway up the steps before he knows something’s wrong. His gut twists violently, and he’s almost sick to his stomach. The groceries are on the ground, spilling on the stairs before he can think to care, and he’s palming his knife, knuckles white.

“Effie?” He bursts through the door, lamps casting yellow glows across the yard.

He shouldn’t have left.

 _Rule number one of recovery, don’t leave them alone._ Shit.

“Effie!” He shouts when there’s no answer. Everything’s as he left it, note on the counter, mug in the sink, and Effie’s door is— Effie’s door is open.

Haymitch barrels in, quick to tuck his knife where she can’t see it, and finds her in the corner, palms pressed tightly over her ears, eyes clenched shut.

She’s mumbling, but Haymitch can’t understand her. He remembers the panic attacks, the sudden grip of anxiety, the insurmountable, irrational fear and he thinks he gets it.

“Please, please, please, please, no. Go away, go away. Please, I don’t know anything.” Her voice goes up an octave, and she’s almost screaming, and Haymitch wonders if she knows where she is.

Haymitch reaches out to her, absently noticing the way her nightgown has slipped down her shoulder to reveal purpling scars, thin but there, and he flinches. She trembling so hard, Haymitch understands. She’s terrified.

“Effie?” he coaxes gently. His fingers brush her shoulder, tracing over the scars, and she flinches away so violently that Haymitch wrenches his hand away.

This is not Effie. Not his Effie.

She looks at him through clouded eyes, as though she can’t quite see him, and he thinks he knows what this is like. He remembers days when he couldn’t see two feet in front of him, the memories and ghosts and awful, awful memories clouding his vision so badly that only the drink could get him through the days. She’d gotten him out of that, saved him, in a way.

Haymitch feels his chest tighten, and he tells her about this in low, hushed tones, squatting near her, but not too close, tells her that he knows what this is like, tells her that he wants to help her, that she matters. Effie stays quiet, head resting against the wall, and she picks at her nightdress, blonde hair stringy and unkempt.

She suddenly looks at him with such derision he wants to crawl away and hide. But he can’t.

So he swallows, once, twice, and says, “Are you with me? Are you okay?”

Haymitch remembers this same situation, this same moment.

Effie had said the same thing, _are you with me, Haymitch, are you okay?_ and he’d taken deep breaths until he was sure he was safe.

There’s such a fire, an anger in her eyes, that it’s almost like she’s standing in front of him, telling him _how dare they do this her tributes?_ and _clean yourself up, Haymitch, for god’s sake,_ and he wants to grab her by her elbows and hold her close and take her pain away. But he stays away, feet tucked beneath his knees, hands clenched to his side.

“Haymitch?” Her voice is small, smaller than he’s ever heard, and he regards her with what he hopes is a kind, encouraging look.

“You should have left me there.” She says it so softly, so simply, it hits him square in the chest and he forgets how to breathe. He thinks of another woman, Seam grey eyes looking into his— _you’re coming back, right? You’ll win._

“Sweetheart?” Haymitch remembers what it’s like to want to die, he’s all too familiar with the feeling. He knows it when he sees it. Effie’s blue eyes are cold and steely, different from her usual warmth and enthusiasm. What he wouldn’t give— he pushes the thought away.

Her fists curl into balls and shake, and he wonders if she’ll hit him.

He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“You should have left me there, to die, Haymitch. I’m _Capitol_. Why did you rescue me? You wasted your time.”

She spits out the words, and the world slows to a crawl and Haymitch stops breathing for a moment, chest hitching mid-breath. The indominable Effie Trinket, giving up.

He won’t stand for it, not from her.

An anger roils deep down, and he leans forward, not particularly caring that she’s leaning as far away from him as possible and he’s very aware that this is not good, but he can’t seem to care. Her pupils are wide, as if challenging him, and he speaks.

His voice is loud and dangerous, and maybe he’s shouting— he can’t tell— and he remembers how he survived in the Arena, remembers the whistle of a knife through the air, remembers Maysilee’s soft hand in his, and remembers the light in Effie’s eyes so long ago.

“You don’t get to give up, Effie! You don’t get to just fucking quit. You don’t get to choose whether you matter or not!” His fist is digging into the hardwood now, knuckles aching as he leans in closer, his nose nearly brushing hers.

“Or maybe you do. I don’t care,” he sneers, and it hurts him to say it, and he feels like maybe stabbing himself would hurt less, but she needs to _know_ that this is not an option, “I don’t care about you, you’re just some Capitol bitch. All you were ever good for was a good fu—”

The slap cracks through the air and he hears it before he feels it. His skin stings violently, and he can feel the blood rushing to the spot where her hand had connected with his cheek. He’s still leaning into her space when she leans in close to his ear.

“Fuck you, Haymitch Abernathy. _Fuck. You_.”

Effie leaves, but Haymitch doesn’t bother follow.

Lifting a hand to his cheek, Haymitch smiles.


	4. Dirt Beneath My Nails and the Truth on Your Lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s been a week since she fled the bedroom, leaving Haymitch behind. Part of her wants to apologize, to say she didn’t mean it."
> 
> Effie and Haymitch speak by the lake, and their ghosts follow them.

It’s been a week since she fled the bedroom, leaving Haymitch behind. Part of her wants to apologize, to say she didn’t mean it. 

But she had meant it, and she’s not sorry for it. He knows that, and between the thick silence, the two of them have grown into a routine of sorts. He’ll get up early, sometimes earlier than the sunrise, and she’ll hear him put the kettle on. Most mornings, Effie stays wrapped in her cocoon of blankets, carefully tucking her feet beneath the warm folds of wool and cotton, lest the nightmares claw at her. 

Haymitch doesn’t come in anymore, not even when she’s screaming loud enough to wake him, and for that, she’s thankful. In turn, she’ll join him, accepting the small meal he makes. Often, its cold toast, but her stomach cannot handle much else. 

It’s her third day in a row walking out by the lake when she turns to him— Effie doesn’t ask him to, but he follows her, far enough behind to leave her to her thoughts, but close enough to be there— and he stiffens, his eyes grey and made of stone as he looks out on the grey water. Her hands tremble in her pockets, where she’s taken to stuffing them out of sight, and she draws the woolen sweater closer to her skin, a chill creeping through her. The ghosts seem to leave her be during the day, and for that, she’s grateful. 

The dark circles beneath her eyes say otherwise. 

“Haymitch,” she licks her lips, and without her makeup, she feels vulnerable. A steady breeze picks up, and Effie shivers, burrowing into herself, “I—” It seems she’s lost the ability to apologize, and instead she falls silent. 

The way the water laps at the edge of the bank mesmerizes her for a while, and when she looks back up, she feels paper thin, see-through, and Haymitch is staring at her, grey eyes expectant. 

“It’s okay, you know, to hate me for not coming back for you,” Haymitch shrugs, his scarf unwinding from around his neck with the sudden movement, “I’ve spent enough years hating you, hating what you stood for.” 

In another part of her life, another version of her, those words might have hurt more than they do, the dull ache just barely enough to make her breathless. Effie wants to cry at the notion that she’d been a part of his pain, either in causing it, or standing aside while his family was killed. Not that she had, but just to think of it— she turns away, looking out at the water instead. 

She trembles to think of it. Effie wants to tell him she doesn’t hate him, not like that, but the words don’t come. 

“I still feel them, you know,” she admits, after a long while, and Haymitch is staring at her again, something undefinable in his eyes, “the ghosts, there, just out of reach, at the edge of everything I do, and I—” her voice shakes and she has no right to feel this pain, to feel this much anguish. She hadn’t suffered nearly as much as he had. 

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, and a sob tears itself away from her, and she’s strangely breathless, and her hands clench into fists as she tries to breathe, because then her lungs are filling with water and it’s dark and she’s cold and it’s too much, everything’s too much, and she’s on the ground, face pressed to the soil of the bank, her fingers clenching around handfuls of dirt, and Haymitch is there, Haymitch, who smells like earth and tobacco and aftershave and everything she never thought she’d get to smell again, and he’s there and he’s real and his fingers are threading through her hair, and Effie thinks of all the times she’d come to him at night, while the train was moving through the districts, and she closes her eyes, wills herself to breathe. 

Her head is buzzing, and she is shaking, and she’s small, feels childlike, and she hates it. Haymitch lifts her to his side gently, and she curls closer to him, his skin warm beneath her cheek. 

“You didn’t deserve it, shhhh, Effie, it’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here, you didn’t deserve it.” Haymitch is there, and his palm is warm on her back, soothing, rubbing out knots of panic as she breathes in deeply, her mouth sticking to the cotton of his shirt. It flutters with each breath she takes. 

Effie sits there for a long time, mud staining her fingers, and her nails are gritty with the feel of dirt. Briefly she wonders how long she’ll have to scrub them to get the dirt out from beneath her fingernails. 

“I’m sorry, Haymitch, I—” She pushes at his arms, trying to sit up.

Haymitch grimaces as he helps her sit more comfortably, brow contorting.

“Don’t. You know, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve this. Hell, you could be the fucking Gamemaker and you still wouldn’t deserve this. You’re Effie fucking Trinket and you did not deserve this. I know you, I know who you are.”

Effie chances a look at him, and Haymitch is looking at her with something she can’t quite name, something that’s not quite hidden beneath the hope and the reassurance and the silent faith. 

“Irony’s an asshole, and the nightmares are a bitch, I know, but that doesn’t mean you deserved it any more than I did, sweetheart.”   
He says it with such conviction that she doesn’t have the heart to argue, to tell him that she’d worked as an Escort for twelve years before Katniss and Peeta, to tell him that she’d been complicit, that she’d placed bets and cheered for the ones she liked and cried for the ones she’d watched die long before he’d met her, but she doesn’t. It’s not time for that. 

“I know that you gave us a reason to fight, I know that you made it possible for Finnick and Johanna to make that alliance, I know that you are a good woman, Effie, and I know…” Haymitch stops, swallows, and Effie feels her heart rabbit in her chest, “I know who you are, I know that you dragged me to bed when the pain was too much, when I wanted to choke on my own vomit and die, and you saved me. You saved us, and you didn’t deserve any of it. Not the scars, not the torture, not the questions.” 

His eyes are flinty with the anger she’s seen time and time again, but this time, it’s for her. His jaw jumps, the muscle twitching, and Effie’s chest is heavy with the notion that he’s angry for her.

Effie thinks that this is the most he’s ever spoken, and he says every word carefully, as if measuring the weight of his words on his tongue, and Effie looks away, because Haymitch Abernathy is always liar and she cannot bear to think that he’s telling the truth. 

He is, though, and he says as much with the soft regard in his eyes as he smiles bitterly like he’s forgotten how. 

Fog is coming in from the south, rolling across the lake, and Haymitch stands. He doesn’t offer her his hand, but waits for her to scramble to her feet on shaking legs. Her hands are dirty, but she stows them in her pockets anyways, content to feel the warm weight of Haymitch’s own hand on the small of her back. 

“You’re a good woman,” he reminds her when he peels off his boots at the door, and presses his fingers into her skin, as if to reassure her. He leaves her then, and shuts the door to his room. 

Her ghosts do not follow her here, not now, not in the comfortable security of his words. They lie in wait, but for now, Effie thinks about Haymitch’s speech and draws comfort from his words, whether they are true or not.


	5. Touchstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'No, no, no, nothing is— nothing is okay!' he shouts, and Effie’s eyes flicker, fear abating as quickly as it had come. Somewhere along the line, her hand had met his and her fingers are curling around his, and he’s clinging to her touch like a drowning man." 
> 
> Haymitch has his own fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is actually one of my worse-off chapters. I don't feel well, but I wanted to write something tonight, so here you go!

It’s early, and Haymitch wakes to a crash and muffled curse.

_You’re a good woman._

He’d believed it when he said it, and he believes it now.

His feet are on the floor so fast, he’s not sure he really feels the chill anymore. He runs out to the living area, heart beating so fast that he can’t quite quell the quake in his hands. He wrenches open the door.

Running, running, always running. Running from the market, running from killers, running from nightmares. Always running away.

_I know who you are._

Running to Effie. Always running to her. When Katniss and Peeta had won their Games, he knew what had happened, and he’d run to her then. When the arena blew up and the cameras went dark, he ran to her.

_Too late, too late, too late._

That thought sends his mind into a panic as he careens to a stop.

Effie’s in a sweater that looks a lot like one of his— he doesn’t mind, but he won’t tell her that— and she’s picking up the pieces of what he supposes might have been a mug at one point. Effie looks up, and—

_You didn’t deserve it._

She smiles.

It’s brief, and it doesn’t reach her eyes, but it takes his breath away nonetheless.

Her sweater slips open a fraction to reveal a pink scar, and he swallows. He’d forgotten. In that brief moment that she’d smiled, he’d forgotten about everything. Haymitch doesn’t say a word to her, tries not to stare, but when she pulls the cardigan closed, she’s pale, and her hands are trembling minutely.

The small pieces of the ceramic mug are scattered everywhere, and Haymitch is sure he’ll find some later, but instead, he holds his palm out, accepting some of the pieces from her. He tries not to think about how she might have chattered away before, commenting on the dirty hardwood, or the shoddy make of the mug, and instead, he focuses on the tiny pieces of ceramic everywhere. They work in tandem for a few stretches of silence before it happens.

Haymitch should have known.

The piece in her hand isn’t big, but it’s big enough.

The jagged edge catches on her palm and she hisses. Her hair falls into her eyes when she examines the cut, blood welling to the surface quickly, and Haymitch feels sick to his stomach. The cut isn’t terrible, but it’s enough to make his hands shake brutally. Effie drops the rest of the pieces on the floor and there’s a terrible buzzing in his ears, and the ground begins to sway and tilt. He takes Effie’s hand in his roughly, and he hears Effie saying something, but he doesn’t know what and his vision dims, as though someone has put out several lights.

Scarlet and thick, Effie’s blood is covering her palm now, and Haymitch is trembling and his hands are out of control as he blindly fumbles for the emergency kit he stowed under the sink a week ago. Gauze is pressed to the wound, and Haymitch hears his own voice, muffled and distant.

“Are you okay, Effie? Effie, are you okay?” His words are garbled, rushed, and Effie’s brow furrows, her free hand coming up to rest on his cheek.

_Blood, too much blood, so much blood, please, no more, no more, anything but this—_

“—ymitch, Haymitch, can you hear me?” Effie is speaking, her voice low and soft, her eyes kind, concerned. He feels the anxiety ease, and the knot in his chest loosens.

He’s sitting on the floor, his knees digging into the rug and his palms cradling her bandaged hand. He nods dumbly, and thinks of her voice, of her blood in a different place, and it had been awful, and there was so much blood, and the coppery tang had filled the air, the stench of infection so thick he’d had to pause, take a breath, before he saw her, Effie, huddled in a corner, trembling and crying and pleading _stop, I don’t know anything, no more, no, plea—_

Effie’s eyes are shining with tears now, her free hand running through his mussed hair.

“It’s okay, whatever it is, it’s okay.” He takes a breath, two, three, and shakes his head slowly. Effie’s looking at him like maybe she cares about him and it drives the panic that much deeper.

 _It’s his fault._ This place, why they were here, everything, all of it.

“No, no, no, nothing is— nothing is okay!” he shouts, and Effie’s eyes flicker, fear abating as quickly as it had come. Somewhere along the line, her hand had met his and her fingers are curling around his, and he’s clinging to her touch like a drowning man.

Haymitch draws in a shuddering breath, and he’s so close to Effie now he wonders why she doesn’t back away.

Effie’s different now, he reminds himself.

She’s like him— made of stone. The thought makes him sick. He wonders if she still bruises easily, and it makes him quiver with hate, makes the bile twist in his abdomen.

“I watched them beat you down, into nothing, I watched them kill you with kindness and a thousand other things, and I saw what they did, Effie, I saw the scars, the marks, I hear you– you scream so loud sometimes I wonder what they did, but I see it. _Every day!_ I see what they made you into, Effie, and it–”

Haymitch is gasping now, and he can’t catch his breath and Effie’s hand is on his still, warm and small and her wrist is bare, the sweater edging up to reveal thin scars marring her porcelain skin, and she’s talking, but he can’t hear her, and he doesn’t care.

“And I watched the light fade from your eyes and thought to myself,” he chuckles, and the laugh is dry and meaningless, coming out hoarse and grating, “what a damn shame to watch it go. Because no one, no one had ever looked at me the way you did.” His voice fills the empty cabin, and he’s shouting, but he stops, thinks, softening his timbre on his next words.

“And they took that away from me. From us.”

Haymitch stops abruptly, and he’s said too much. Effie is still, wide-eyed, and her blue eyes are flickering across his face like she might find an answer to a question he’s not sure he wants to know.

_Shit._

He stops, measured breaths coming in bursts, and Effie still sits in front of him, unmoving.

“Haymitch— I— you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not— don’t. Please,” Effie stares at him, “don’t do this. These are my scars to bear. Don’t make them yours.”

Effie seems to consider him for a moment, her face soft and her eyes determined as she leans forward.

Her lips are dry and cool on his forehead, and Haymitch closes his eyes at the press of her skin against his, fist curling as she breaks away. Her blue eyes, still so sad, meet his, and then she continues cleaning, leaving Haymitch to his thoughts.

It’s only later, when he’s cocooned in his bed sheets, safe from his own mind, that it occurs to him that she never did let go of his hand.


	6. Grey Storms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For a brief moment, a flicker of a thought, she wishes she were back in the Capitol, with her wigs and makeup and nice dresses, because surely that would be easier than this. 
> 
> But that was a different kind of torture."
> 
> Effie grounds herself, and Haymitch helps.

It comes slowly at first. Little things, here and there, small moments of fatigue, minutes where Effie has to take a breath or four, remind herself of where she is. It helps if she’s outside. Outside, the air is clean, and she can hear the gentle lap of the water at the edge of the lake. Inside, it’s harder.

Haymitch doesn’t say much, but then, between the two of them, she’d always been the talkative one, really. Before.

Everything in Effie’s life is split down the middle, a perfect symmetry of her life in sequences, like two different stitches in a quilt: before and after. But now, between her future and her past, tucked away in this tiny place of a fragile sort peace they’d built up together, the before and the after are whirling together, and some days her hands tremble so awfully that Haymitch has to lift her mugs to safety before they shatter on the floor.

Her hands will shake, and he’ll see, and his hands are quick, setting the mug away, rubbing small, gentle circles into whatever he can reach first.

It comes slowly, at first, and then all at once. It’s cold, this particular morning, and Effie is awake for a long time, staring out of the window, trying so hard to focus on the dark clouds that swell with a coming rainstorm. Her legs ache to move, but she can’t.

She can’t. Panic stills her, fear paralyzing her, and she drifts back through time, her memories unravelling like a badly sewn stitch.

She can’t breathe, and she’s not panicking, not really, or maybe she is. Either way, she doesn’t scream. _They told her not to scream,_ and so she lays there, watching the storm gather, and lets her palm smooth over the bedsheet, trying desperately to wish herself away. She needs to be anywhere but where she doesn’t want to be.

For a brief moment, a flicker of a thought, she wishes she were back in the Capitol, with her wigs and makeup and nice dresses, because surely that would be easier than this.

But that was a different kind of torture. Effie pushes the thought away with a deep breath, focusing on the feel of the cotton sheets beneath her, pushing her thumb to the fabric and letting it glide across.

Effie tries to shut her eyes, but the memories follow her, invading her mind, unwelcome and unwanted. She forces herself to remember how to breathe.

 _In. Out. In. Out._ Easy, just like Haymitch had been teaching her.

But the walls are encroaching around her, the white, plain paint chipping away to reveal stone, and soon, this place is a prison too, and she cannot move, cannot run, and Effie can feel the press of fear against her lungs.

She’s pulled out of her nightmare when the bed dips, and she’s acutely aware of how loud her breathing is, a rough, grating breathing, the kind that comes after running; it’s heavy and rapid, and her heart beats out a morse code.

_Help me._

The sheets are moved back, and she feels the heat of him almost close enough to reach back and touch, but no, not touching, no, never touching because that was a rule of his. No touching. Not when she wasn’t facing him.

He always, always asks.

But still, the heat of him is so close, Effie has to fight the urge to roll away. Effie’s every nerve is on fire, and she swallows thickly in the quiet. Effie doesn’t know how long they stay that way, and so she waits, listens.

Haymitch’s breaths are timed with her, short, shallow, and slightly too fast, and she wonders if he’d done it on purpose, a silent, voiceless echo of his support.

She’s grateful, she thinks, and she turns to him. The rain has begun to spatter against the window pane, and the glass rattles a little, loud in the quiet room.

Haymitch’s eyes look back at her, the grey of them almost black, and Effie’s comforted by the sound his stubble makes as he rubs against the pillowcase when he adjusts minutely. His pajamas are still on, white t-shirt stretched across his bulky frame, muscles still visible, even through the thick knit of the shirt, and his hand is taut at his side, gripping the blanket and Effie nods.

His hand meets her cheek tenderly, in a gentle fondness that seemed so familiar that they might have been touching this way for years, though in the weeks here, she’d taught him how to touch her when the attacks came, when and how to ask for permission, and when not to.

His thumb ghosts across her cheekbone, skin catching slightly on his calloused thumb pad, and he pulls his lips upwards in a sort of smile.

It’s more for her than him, she knows.

Effie takes a deep breath, exhaling through her parted lips, and she watches as a loose strand of hair that’s fallen across Haymitch’s forehead flutters slightly, and Haymitch begins.

“Your name is Effie Trinket. You are in District Four.” His voice is strong, soothing, and Effie wants to close her eyes. But she can’t, not yet.

“My name is Effie Trinket. I am in District Four,” she repeats, her voice soft.

“You are safe. The war is over.” His thumb traces an idle pattern across her cheek, and she tries not to pull away.

“I am s—safe. The war is over.” Effie stumbles over the words a little, and Haymitch stops, pauses in his strokes, and she forces herself to look at him, to see him.

“I am here, I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes are grey, grey like the storm clouds outside, grey like the hospital tent she’d been treated in, grey like— grey like the cell, made of stone and iron and all things inescapable. Grey like the Peacekeeper gloves that bite into her flesh while they ask her unanswerable questions that she doesn’t—

“Effie, repeat what I said,” and Haymitch is there, pulling her out of her waking dreams, “Please, Effie.”

Grey eyes, grey like a spring morning, grey like the lake outside, grey and soft and _good._

“You are here, you’re not going to leave me.” Effie’s voice is almost too loud, but Haymitch seems to deem it as a good sign, and his thumb leaves her cheek.

She catches his warm hand in hers, and Haymitch’s eyes flicker up to her face, comically wide and almost stunned.

“Stay?” The word hangs in the air, and Effie’s almost afraid to hear his answer.

She takes a deep breath, wonders if she should just—

“Okay.”


	7. You Taste of Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'I forgot what the stars looked like,' she says, and her voice is small, cautious, 'I missed them.'
> 
> Haymitch gives a non-committal hum of acknowledgment, and he turns, water running down to his elbows."
> 
> Effie asks Haymitch a question.

Haymitch Abernathy realizes he wants to kiss her exactly four weeks and a day after they arrive at the cabin. She’s standing out on the porch, never mind that it’s cold enough to coat the grass in a fine white frost and he can see her trembling in the slight chill on the wind that’s blustering through the trees, but she’s looking out at the stars and she doesn’t seem to mind all that much. She’s wrapped in an oversized sweater, hands tucked in close to her chest, and he swears he’s seeing her for the first time.

He’s standing by the sink, warm water running over his mug, and he watches her from the window.

He’s never seen Effie more beautiful, broken as she is, and maybe, he thinks, if he presses his lips against hers hard enough and often enough, then maybe all of her pain and hurt might drift away, and maybe he could dull the ache softening her blue eyes. Maybe he could put her back together again.

It doesn’t work that way, he knows, and he’s certainly not fool enough to think it would.

But it’s a nice thought.

Haymitch shakes the thought away, turning back to his task.

He only stills again when Effie comes in, her soft sigh the only that alerts him to her return. His hands rest against the counter, and his fingers curl against the grain, fingernails catching on the rough surface. Her hair is slipping from its confinement, blonde strands falling forward, and she shifts, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I forgot what the stars looked like,” she says, and her voice is small, cautious, “I missed them.”

Haymitch gives a non-committal hum of acknowledgment, and he turns, water running down to his elbows.

“Did you see Orion’s Belt?” He says, and it sounds forced, and he wants to wince at the way her eyes snap to his face. She’s standing in the doorway, and she looks childlike, in her too-big sweater that he’s sure she borrowed from him at some point. Her blue eyes are shining in the dull light of the cabin, and Haymitch definitely wants to kiss her.

“Yes, I did.” She moves almost soundlessly to the table and sits, her hands instinctively wrapping around the mug of tea she’d left a few hours before, now long since cooled.

Haymitch crosses the room, wringing the towel between his hands, and it’s only when he thinks of flesh beneath his thumbs and the gasp of a last, rattling breath that he stops, loosening his grip. He drops unceremoniously into the chair across from her with a grunt, and Effie doesn’t look up from where she’s tracing the grain of wood with her fingers.

Her lips are reddened and Haymitch watches her worry her bottom lip with her teeth and he understands then.

“What?” Perhaps it’s not the most delicate way of putting it, but Haymitch has never been a delicate person to begin with.

“I just—” she takes a breath, deep and nervous, and he can see her hands shaking, and Haymitch remembers another time in another place, when he’d watched and waited and prayed to _someone_ that she would take another breath—

“How long was I there?”

Haymitch flinches, and the sting of the words snaps through the warmth in the air, and he very nearly shivers.

“Eff, if I could have gone back for you, I—” Haymitch begins, but more than anything, he understands that excuses and apologies fall on deaf ears, so he continues, “Two months.”

“Two months,” Effie smiles wryly, and the smile contorts into a grimace, “two months of _that Hell_.”

Haymitch swallows, drops his hand to the tabletop, and he wonders if he should reach for her. His fingers itch to hold hers, but he curls them into his palm instead, his nails creating crescent marks.

“I— I understand.” Haymitch falters, knows it’s a lie, but he’s a liar, he always has been, because he’s seen dead kids in his sleep for twenty five years, and nothing can compare to what he knows she’s been through. He doesn’t dare ask.

_Broken ribs._

_Bruised lungs._

_Lacerations of the extremities and back._

He remembers a time when he wasn’t sure she’d make it, when no one thought she would, and he shuts his eyes.

When he opens them, Effie’s staring at him, her eyes cutting into his, and it’s almost as if she can see right through him. He remembers how she felt, so long ago, bare skin beneath his fingertips, smooth and unmarred. Her hand is on his, cool and small, and he decides then that he never wants her to let go. His thumb traces the red scabbed line that arks across her palm, and Effie catches his thumb between her fingers and palm, stilling his movements.

“You’re a liar,” the words cut through him, and his feels his heart render in two. She says it as a fact, and he agrees.

“I know.”

Effie takes a breath, and Haymitch knows what comes next. It’s a question he’s asked a billion times over.

“Does it ever stop? Does it stop hurting?” She looks at him, and he knows that she must know the answer by now, she’s known for a long time.

“If it did, we wouldn’t be here,” he replies, and she smiles weakly.

Effie looks at him then, with clearer eyes than he’s seen in the past month, something different in the depths of her Capitol blue eyes. She leans forward, her breath coming in shallow flutters that warm his skin, and her hand is still in his and she’s staring at him and he understands what she wants. His heartbeat is thundering in his ears, the rush of blood heady and dizzying and unfamiliar. This is new, he thinks, and his hands are cool now, nerves sparking and he is very aware of the way her tongue darts out to moisten her lips.

Her hand is cool on his cheek, and he feels like maybe he could break, and he’s shaking, he’s sure, but then— then her lips touch his, the faintest brush of skin on skin, and he suddenly _knows._ He knows a thousand things and nothing all at once.

Effie’s eyes flutter shut, her lips cool and his warm with tea, and she tastes of the cool breeze outside and he wonders if even the stars could measure up to this.

Haymitch knows that he could die with the memory of her lips on his, he knows that he never wants to taste anything else but _her,_ and he knows without a doubt that he would raze the world to the ground if it meant protecting her.

He watches as she pulls away. The taste of her lingers, and he stares as she rises from the table, palms flat as she pushes away.

“Thank you, Haymitch,” she says, and he takes a moment to reply.

The words are thick on his tongue, and he doesn’t have the will to be graceful.

“For what?” His voice is rough, gravelly, and he watches as she pulls the sweater down to cover her wrists.

She smiles then, a small one, and for a brief second he’s reminded of the Effie he knows— _knew._

“For reminding me what the stars look like.”


	8. Running Girl, Please Don't Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you okay?” The question is quiet, stilted on the still air of the night. Effie’s making tea. 
> 
> In which Effie and Haymitch have an important non-conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've left this for too long, and Effie was begging to be written, so I finally gave in.

“Are you okay?” The question is quiet, stilted on the still air of the night. Effie’s making tea.

It’s close to midnight, and she’s almost making it through the night, but tonight the reminders of all she had done are so close, so loud, that she can’t sleep. Her feet are far too cold on the hardwood, but she turns, tugging the robe around herself more comfortably. It’s cooler, and Effie thinks it must be nearing winter.

Haymitch stands against the doorway to his room, his body blotting out the low light of his bedside lamp. Behind him, Effie can see the crumpled sheets of his bed, twisted and knotted as only a nightmare could do. She thinks he’s brave, to live with that.

She is not.

Effie sets the mug down with a shaking hand. The tremors are better, but she doubts they’ll ever go away. Instead, she looks at Haymitch, who’s moved closer.

“Are you okay?” They haven’t spoken since that night four days ago, when Effie had kissed him and he had kissed her back and she had run away.

_Coward._

The voice roars in her ears, and she shivers with the violence of the feeling, hot air suddenly electric around her, and she aches for the chill of winter again, for the goosebumps that erupt on her skin at the first sign of frost, but it does not come. Instead, this air is too much and its too thick, too pressing, and Effie’s skin balloons and swells with panic, and her legs shake, urging her to run again.

She breathes, sharply, suddenly, and it’s a strangled gasp more than anything, and Haymitch is far too close, his hand reaching out to ground her, to touch her, but she suddenly thinks that he cannot, should not touch her. For once, she wishes his hands were dirty, stinking of sweat, soil, and alcohol, if only to rival her own dirty hands.

But even as her hands tremble, even as her eyes flick down to look, she half-expects to see the blood of all of her tributes, of the _children_ she hadn’t saved, of the children she’d killed almost single-handedly, with false promises and honeyed lies. But her hands are clean, a white, pale porcelain against the sliver of moonlight and the warm light that drifts from Haymitch’s bedroom.

And her lips tremble with the force of the word threatening to erupt from her, a snarled web of guilt and sorrow twisting in her mouth and she thinks it tastes like metal.

“ _No._ ”

It’s a whisper, no more than a breath, but Haymitch is there, and he folds her into a tight embrace, his beard— more a beard than scruff now— scratching at the thin hair on her scalp.

He’s warm, then, solid, and Effie wants this, _needs_ this to be real, and she folds impossibly closer, the smell of his soap filling her head with calm buzzing thoughts of hands brushing, of the feeling of his palm beneath her fingers, of whispers and of embraces that spoke of nothing but kindness.

He’s not gentle, never that, but he’s certainly not as gruff as she might expect him to be, and so, she tugs his sleeve, and they find their backs pressed against the wood of cabinet doors, knobs between shoulder blades, but Effie doesn’t mind this. Haymitch does not seem to either, or if he does, he doesn’t say a word, only joining her with a popping of joints. She presses into him, and it’s automatic, the way he shifts his arm to let her nestle into his side, the way her face tilts into his neck.

“I’m— I’m sorry,” she begins, and Haymitch’s brow twinges together, curiousity betraying his stoic face, “I shouldn’t have—” It occurs to her then that this is not the right way to have this conversation, nor the time.

“Kissed me?” Haymitch finishes, voice raw and rigid with sleep and something else.

Effie tightens her fingers around his palm, pressing in all of the sincerity and reassurance she cannot voice. She hums when he shifts closer, tucking his free arm around her and pulling her closer. Haymitch does not touch people, Effie had noticed that all those years ago, but, she thinks, perhaps she’s special.

She pretends she is for a time, while the warmth of his skin and touch drive away the prickling demons that breathe down her neck and slip their fingers around every good thought she has, strangling the light and happiness from each individual moment until it’s twisted and black and morose.

And so, for now, she relishes the warmth, and tries not to think about the last time they’d been this close, how she’d leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, tries not to think about how she’d run, afterwards, from his warmth and light and everything good, and tries not to think about how he’d felt, rough, dry, but gentle and perhaps even nice. They watch as the hours pass and the sun rises through frost-covered panes, and the sunlight stretches its pink light across to touch her skin, her toes having gone pale and cold hours before, though she imagines it might have been warm.

“I’m not sorry I kissed you,” she says after a long while of sitting, and she moves, the stillness of her body causing an ache to curl it’s way into her muscles, “I’m sorry I ran.”

Haymitch jerks then, as though he’s been awakened from a long slumber, and perhaps he had, and perhaps she shouldn’t have said a word, but it’s too late now, because the words are there, hanging in the air between them, and he’s very close now, grey eyes almost blue in the morning light as they study her face.

She wants to look away.

She doesn’t think she could bear it if she did, so she forces herself to stay here, in this moment, though the press of her nightmares are behind her now, looming ever behind her, whispers of sins and madness rippling from fork-tongued mouths, and she clutches Haymitch’s hand tighter still, knuckles whitening.

“Don’t be. I get it. You run,” he starts, and his voice is like sandpaper, thick and grating with lack of sleep, “I’d be worried if you didn’t. Do you want to run now?”

Effie looks up at him, and he smiles, and it’s strange, contorted, forced even, his grey eyes steely and guarded. His hand is hot in hers, unbearably so, but she holds on, because she needs him to know.

“No. No, I,” she swallows, her heart beating so fast she thinks he might hear it in the silence, but she continues, and her voice is pushing out into the atmosphere, words wrenching themselves from her throat too fast to stop, and she says them anyways, and her stomach twists, and she thinks of the way he looks at her, warmth guarded by steel and metal and hurt, “I don’t want to run. I want to stay. Here. With you.”

It’s soft, gentle, sweet, this kiss, everything Haymitch is not, but then Effie is always surprised by him and his lips are on hers, and she tastes him, and he’s all sweat and sleep and everything good, and for the first time in months, she does not want to run.


	9. Goodbye, I'll See You Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually the final chapter of As the River Flows. As a writer, I feel that the story itself has come to it's natural end, and it's time to close the book for this story. 
> 
> To Abi, who encouraged me, and tolerates my unending torrent of ideas, thank you for reading this and thank you for loving Haymitch and Effie as much as I do. To Christine, without whose enthusiasm and amazingly detailed metas I would never have gotten this far, thank you for your support and unending love for this story. 
> 
> To my other readers, whomever you may be, thank you for supporting me and accompanying me on this first journey into Panem and this universe.

They don’t talk about it, but there’s always been this possibility, and Haymitch knows that, he gets it.

So when Effie tells him that she’s staying that March morning, that she’s not coming back with him, he understands. It’s never been about him or what he wants, after all, and it still isn’t and maybe war had made him soft somehow, more inclined to let her go, to say goodbye, despite a shared affection, despite slow kisses in early February mornings, and the warmth of her tucked into him as he talks her through a panic attack.

The words stick in his throat, and he can’t _say_ goodbye. But he does, in his own way.

He kisses her again, and wishes he could kiss her always.

He can’t, he knows, so he smiles as she helps him pack.

“Where will you go then?” The words stutter out, and he wants to say _goodbye_ , but his throat constricts and he stays silent instead.

Haymitch stands on the porch of the cabin, and Effie’s in her best dress, a grey, drab thing, and he swallows hard at the way Effie’s eyes blink at the harsh spring sunlight filtering through the trees. He stands in the March air and a cool breeze ruffles his hair. Haymitch fiddles with the frayed handle of his bag. It’s light, lighter than it was, and Haymitch expects that Effie knows more about that than she lets on.

Effie smiles crookedly, and even in the too-bright sunlight, Haymitch can tell it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I don’t know,” her voice wobbles, and Haymitch watches as her fists clench, knuckles whitening, and he wonders if it’s too late to tug her to him, cling to her, to whisper in her ear all of the things he’s too cowardly to say, but she shifts, and he doesn’t and the moment is lost.

Haymitch wants to tell her that she can come back with him, that there’s a house next to his that’s been empty for twenty-six years and that he’d paint it pink if she wanted him to, that he’d pack away his bottles and make room in his drawers for her, that he’d share his bed and his house and his favorite shirt, but he doesn’t and he can’t and he turns away instead because he cannot face Effie.

Effie, who is hollow-cheeked, who is bruised and scarred in ways he thought he knew but knows he cannot fathom, and who is far braver than he.

Pine needles rustle and a branch snaps beneath his boot before he turns back, and Effie’s still on the porch, still clinging to the banister, pale face pink in the early spring chill.

Haymitch swallows, and suddenly he’s leaving and he’s waving goodbye to his brother and mother for the last time and his hands are slick with their blood and he can’t breathe.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says, and it’s foolish, because _when has he ever known her at all?_

He walks away, because he can’t look at her, can’t watch her face as he leaves.

* * *

 

Katniss and Peeta welcome him home, and when Haymitch looks at Katniss, he sees Effie and it’s too much, so he locks himself away and breaks every goddamn bottle he can reach until he’s tired and sore. He sleeps on the hard tile of his grimy kitchen that night, and decides he can’t look at himself in the mirror.

His hands are shaking in ways that he’s forgotten about for months, and when he shaves, he cuts himself more than once and watches rivulets of blood drain down the sink, until the basin is a sort of ugly smeared brown that reminds him too much of the time Effie had sliced her hand open, ruby liquid welling up to the cut, rushing out, and he remembers the _drip drip drip,_ and he has to breathe, and he does, and his throat burns and his lungs are on fire.

He scrubs the basin, and the slight pink tinge as the last of the water rushes away is the only reminder of his mistakes.

His hands don’t shake after that.

He clenches them, unclenches them, and stuffs them into his woolen pockets because March is still too cold here in Twelve, and tries to ignore the way Peeta looks at him from behind the curtains of the house across the street.

He sees Katniss sometimes, in her garden, tending to her primrose flowers and thinks of a blonde girl with fire in her eyes and a voice like honey and his heart clenches.

Haymitch never stops to talk.

It’s boring here, in Twelve, and his nights are eerily quiet, and sometimes he’ll lie awake and wait for a shatter of glass that he knows will not come, if only because he’s used to it. Haymitch finds himself making tea more often than not, and even the smell of liquor churns his stomach after a while.

He cleans until he’s bored out of his mind, and he tracks mud into the house again if only because he’s tired of looking at the pristine floors. They remind him too much of Effie’s cell all of those months ago. Spotless concrete, a glossy sheen glinting up even in the pitch black of the room, and he thinks of the way Effie had screamed when he touched her, feather-light fingertips trembling, and he leaves his boots in the living room.

He tries to read, but the only godforsaken book he owns is a Capitol issued directory of mining regulations. Haymitch throws it away.

A knock sounds at his door on the third day he’s home— back, anyways, _it’s not home, not really_ — and the grate of his chair against the kitchen tile is the only sounds save for the jabberjays outside. He swallows thickly and he thinks of Effie, with her thin hair and her too-pale face and he hopes for a brief second that is all too brief.

Katniss and Peeta stand on his doorstep, basket in hand, and he smells fresh bread, even through the thick cloth that separates him from his apparent gift. He swallows his disappointment and tries to look pleased.

“Haymitch,” Peeta says, and it’s tentative, and Haymitch thinks of Effie again, with her small voice and shaking hands and he blinks the memory away and wonders if the kids are really okay, “we brought lunch.”

Haymitch shifts and Peeta inches past, Katniss clinging to him like a lifeline, her fingers digging into his arm as the trio shuffle into the kitchen after a few hoarse directions from Haymitch.

Lunch is stilted, heavy, and too quiet, in a way that reminds him of the cabin.

Haymitch decides that knives are too much for Katniss, for Peeta, so the scrape of spoons is the only sound for a while. Peeta attempts some conversation, asking him about Four, asking if the water is bluer now, and of course it is, but the winter grey had blurred the countryside and Haymitch tells him that it’s like Thirteen, all greys and blues.

Peeta understands, hums in acknowledgement, eyes shifting downwards and no one mentions Effie and it hurts Haymitch a little, but then, why would they care? Katniss trembles when she lifts the spoon to her mouth.

When the young couple leaves, Haymitch blots up the broth with a napkin.

* * *

 

It’s early April and the spring thaw has finally come, and with it, brighter days. The sun is shining, and Haymitch lifts his face to the sky, soaking up the warmth as he walks down the road, a single goose gaggling in the container he carries.

When he looks back towards his house, he stops.

A woman is standing on his porch, head hanging and palm resting against the grain of the door and Haymitch is running, faster than he remembers ever running, and he’s bounding onto the porch now.

It’s Effie, of course it is.

Effie, with a fuller head of hair than before, Effie, whose eyes are bluer than he remembers, and Effie, who’s greeting him with a strange smile quirking at her lips.

Haymitch understands then, knows that everything will be okay, that Peeta and Katniss and Effie will turn out alright and just maybe he will too.

He’s panting, huffs of hot breath shifting Effie’s bangs just slightly, but her face is pink and her temples are wet with sweat and her eyes are shining and Haymitch knows he’ll do anything she asks.

“I thought maybe… I thought maybe I could stay here?”

Haymitch huffs out a laugh, somewhere between a sob and a chuckle, and he takes her only bag and lets her in, and when his fingers brush her shoulder, she laughs and she is beautiful.

Effie stays and Haymitch kisses her always.

 


End file.
